Results for fortnight
On this page:
 
Dictionary:

fortnight

  (fôrt'nīt') pronunciation
n.

A period of 14 days; two weeks.

[Middle English fourtenight, alteration of fourtene night, fourteen nights : Old English fēowertēne, fourteen + Old English niht, night.]


 
 
Word Tutor: fortnight
pronunciation

IN BRIEF: n. - A period of fourteen consecutive days.

pronunciation Depend on it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

 
WordNet: fortnight
Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: a period of fourteen consecutive days
  Synonym: two weeks


 
Wikipedia: fortnight


A fortnight is a unit of time equal to two weeks: that is 14 days, or literally 14 nights. The term is common in the British Isles and many Commonwealth countries such as Australia where many wages, salaries and most social security benefits are paid on a fortnightly basis.[1] Fortnight is rarely used in North America. The word fortnight derives from the Old English feowertiene niht, meaning "fourteen nights".[citation needed]

In many languages, there is no such term to describe a time span of two weeks and the equivalents of "two weeks" or "fourteen days" have to be used. Payroll systems may use the term "bi-weekly" to refer to pay periods every 2 weeks (26 per year). In Spanish, Italian, French and in Portuguese, exist the term "quincena", "quindici giorni", "quinze jours" or "quinzena", all meaning "fifteen days" which are used to roughly name a two-weeks time span.

The fortnight is the base unit of time in the FFF (Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight) System of units.

Unusual usages

See also

References

  1. ^ Australian Government - How much Disability Support Pension do I get?. Retrieved on 2007-08-03.

 
Translations: Fortnight

Dansk (Danish)
n. - fjorten dage

Nederlands (Dutch)
twee weken, veertien dagen

Français (French)
n. - (GB) quinzaine, quinze jours, deux semaines

Deutsch (German)
n. - zwei Wochen, vierzehn Tage

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - δεκαπενθήμερο

Italiano (Italian)
due settimane, quindicina di giorni

Português (Portuguese)
n. - quinzena (f), período (m) de quinze dias

Русский (Russian)
две недели

Español (Spanish)
n. - quince días, dos semanas, quincena

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - fjorton dagar

中文(简体) (Chinese (Simplified))
两星期

中文(繁體) (Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 兩星期

한국어 (Korean)
n. - (영) 주일

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 二週間

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) اسبوعان‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮שבועיים‬


 
 

Join the WikiAnswers Q&A community. Post a question or answer questions about "fortnight" at WikiAnswers.

 

Copyrights:

Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved.
eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial Read more
WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Fortnight" Read more
Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved.  Read more

On this page:   E-mail   print Print  Link  

 

Keep Reading

Mentioned In: